[guiltygatorade]

Super layman's take:

- China has a "ministry of culture" which decides what foreign media can enter the domestic market, especially to play on the big screen

- Chinese domestic films enjoy what effectively is media protectionism

- Hollywood obviously wants a piece of that giant market

- What movies get approved/denied and for what reasons can get very arbitrary. So it comes down to a matter of trying to win favors of people deciding the approval process.

- Often this means shooting big scenes in locations in China, or portraying China in a positive light, or starring Chinese characters, etc. This effectively translates to "you can help us look good globally and we allow you to make money in our market".

I have no idea where the "get 50% what they should" came from, and I'm too lazy to look. But dealing with the Chinese government regulations is really just a quagmire of conflicts of interest.

*Edit: formatting